


We’ve Got to Break This Cycle

by icyvanity



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (Niall), Blood, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Established Relationship, Gore, M/M, Post-Canon, i lied it's graphic, i mean the violence isn't /too/ graphic, just to be safe tho, post-trk, there might be an epilogue at some point aka ch4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 08:40:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7162808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyvanity/pseuds/icyvanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've grown up, fallen in love with their lives, their family, each other. They're the dreamer and the magician, the farmer and the businessman; they're parents to one and friends to many. But, there are still things that haunt them from their pasts: the sporadic nightmares and the ghosts of who they were before. There are people who remember the things they did in that fateful year—who know who raised the dreamer, who was killed for his insolence—and those people have come for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lover

They always say you fall for a man like your father. Ronan didn’t believe there could be any two people more different than Adam Parrish and Niall Lynch; yet, he loved Adam with all of his being, the way he saw his father love his mother (the way he had loved his father). He loved Adam as a friend first—the boy who grudgingly gave over his notes and up his bed when Ronan could barely function as a human, let alone go to class. He loved him as a lover—the man with arms wrapped around Ronan to keep his fractured pieces together, lips pressed to his skin like glue to patch him up. He loved him as his family—the man who spun Opal around on his shoulders as Ronan struggled with the camera, who sang 80s song as he tried out new recipes in their dream kitchen.

Ronan loved him more than life itself. He realized now that he couldn’t simply enjoy someone else’s presence; his love was all-encompassing, passionate. He had Blue and Gansey, he’d had Noah—he tried for years to find him again, Adam carrying the bag of Noah’s bones all around the ley lines to no avail—he even had Henry, lurking in the corner as though he didn’t know what he was to Ronan. They were his family; them and Matthew and Opal, sometimes even Declan; Mr. Gray, wherever he was, and the psychics, and and the crazy witch in their attic who threw pencil shavings at his head whenever he walked past her.

They were older now—older than they’d been when things went to hell, when he’d been unmade and Gansey had _died_ , and the demon had almost made Adam kill them all. Blue still had a scar above her eye from the last time she saw Noah—though that wasn’t _really_ Noah; they all knew that. Gansey was just as bright as he’d ever been, but he would trail off sometimes as though he were experiencing all of time at once. Adam and Ronan woke each other up often enough with nightmares from that year, from before, from after.

They got by. They raised Opal after Adam finished college and started working on his thesis for his doctorate while managing a big business company a town over. Ronan dreamt more animals for the Barns, worked on waking the ones his father had dreamt and eventually figured it out, worked the land until he was growing enough on it to sustain them if his father’s money ever ran out. They had Gansey and Blue over every few weeks for dinner, Henry tagging along with them.

It was one of those days today. Adam had the day off from work and they spent all day cooking and baking together, ending up with pink-tinged lips and cheeks, hands and clothes covered in flour.

“Fuck off, Lynch,” Adam said as he glanced down at his previously pristine shirt; Ronan had stamped enough handprints on it that there was barely any black fabric showing anymore.

Ronan winked at him. “Guess you’ll have to change. Don’t mind me,” he said, starting to whistle a tune that sounded suspiciously like the murder squash song.

Adam rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt over his head. He saw Ronan’s eyes travel down his exposed torso, catching on the old scars, the toned abdomen, the bruises he’d left there this morning with his teeth. Adam still found himself shocked that it could be like this—that they could be together for ten years and still fall for each other every day. Ronan kissed him again before he left the room—a chaste thing that was a promise for later, for the rest of their lives.

Adam found another shirt in their closet, this one with sleeves too long for him. He buttoned it, and was rolling the sleeves up as he knocked on Opal’s door.

“Come in,” she called out; Adam did. She lay on her bed, playing with some constellations Ronan had dreamt up for her the night before. She hadn’t grown much in the years since he pulled her out of a dream, but she had a mature air about her sometimes. She was studious like Adam, curious like Gansey, rebellious like Blue, but most of all she was like Ronan.

“He just yelled to get some beer from the garage. Apparently the fridge is lacking,” she said somberly, passing her hand over Ursa Major and glancing up at Adam.

He rolled his eyes, “Of course it is.” He turned to leave, but paused before he shut the door, “Gansey and Blue should be here soon. I’ve heard they brought you something from the Galapagos.”

Adam smiled at her shriek of joy as he closed the door. He walked out the back of the house without passing the kitchen, but he could still hear the thrumming of Ronan’s music through the walls. They’d grown up, but clearly not too much.

The garage was somehow created so that it was practically soundproof—not just inside, but the driveway as well. Ronan stored his twinkling, singing dreams here, amid Adam’s college boxes and his desk—he still came out here sometimes for some peace and perspective while writing papers. It had been a while since Adam had worked on either of their cars—the BMW or his five-year old hybrid—and his tools had since gathered dust. He left the big door open for light as he rooted through boxes for the beer. He found a six-pack on a shelf above his old desk, clearly pulled from Ronan’s mind. That, or companies had actually started marketing “Brew Sargent” and “IPArrish”; Adam doubted it.

The fact that Ronan had worked with whatever was left of Cabeswater to dream this for them sent warmth spreading through Adam’s chest. He’d finally made it; he had the job, the kid, the love that all made life an adventure rather than the painful disappointment he was always worried it would be.

The sound of a shoe scuffing against the driveway sent him whirling around to face the open door. A man stood just inside, a silhouette against the dying sunlight. He wasn’t Gansey or Ronan, though Adam couldn’t make out his features. He held something in his hand, but it was as dark as the rest of him.

“This is private property,” Adam said, gathering himself. “What are you doing here?”

“Adam Parrish, I’m guessing,” the man said, cocking his head to the side. “Must be; I don’t see any of Niall in you at all.”

Adam tried to calm his heart, to keep it from beating out of his chest at the mention of Ronan’s father. “Were you one of his associates?”

“Associate. Ally. Friend. Enemy. There are too many words I would use to describe my relationship with that bastard.”

“He’s been dead for years,” Adam said.

The man chuckled, “Oh, I know. Mr. Gray, was it; the one who splattered his brains out against the drive?” The man shifted, and what was in his hand caught the light; it was a tire iron. “Thought I’d take a page out of his book.”

Adam dropped the six-pack. There was a sick crunch as the glass broke against the hard concrete, the beer seeping into Adam’s shoes; he barely noticed. He took a step back, but the man inched forward, gripping the iron with two hands now. “What do you want?” Adam asked, trying to keep the fear from his voice. His eyes were fixated on the tire iron, and he prayed to whatever god existed that the man wouldn’t use it on him; if not for his sake, for Ronan’s.

“It’s nothing personal, Mr. Parrish. I only do what they pay me to do.”

“They?” Adam asked, stalling as he tried to make his way toward his tools. There had to be something that could double as a weapon among them.

“Laumonier,” the man said, shrugging and moving forward still. “They can’t find Mr. Gray, and one of them was killed just inside that house. Ronan Lynch looks mighty suspicious.”

Adam shook his head vigorously. “Ronan didn’t do _anything_. That was all years ago, anyway; why now?”

“Laumonier has cancer,” the man replied, not specifying which, or if both of them had smoked themselves to death. “Not much time left, it seems.”

“But—”

Adam’s legs hit his old desk, and the man shook his head. “Look, Mr. Parrish. I’m sure you’re a real great guy. It ain’t personal. But, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Time’s up, Mr. Parrish.” He grabbed Adam’s wrists in one of his own in an unbreakable grip—Adam knew, he _tried_ —and bodily dragged him around the BMW. Adam saw the driveway looming closer and he realized he would be just like Niall; he would _die_ just like Niall.

“Not here, anywhere but here.” Adam knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t stop the man. He dug his feet into the ground, shoved back against the man, slammed his head against his chest. He couldn’t stop it; his death, like Niall’s had been, was inevitable.

“No, you can’t— _Cabeswater!_ ” Adam shouted. “ _Please_ —anywhere but here!”

The first hit must have been to shut him up. Adam toppled forward, barely reaching out fast enough to catch himself. His vision was already clouded, the back of his head aching and the rest of it pounding in time with his pulse. He was attempting to drag himself away by the time the second swing came. He couldn’t pick himself up after that. If he strained his eyes, he could just make out the light of the kitchen window; he thought he saw Ronan for a moment, laughing with Opal on his shoulders. Ronan deserved it. He deserved to be happy.

Adam was dead by the time the fifth swing came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [read on tumblr](http://lady-gryffindor.tumblr.com/post/145779445878/weve-got-to-break-this-cycle)


	2. Dreamer

When Ronan was younger, he thought he would grow up and be happy, in a house filled with dreams and made by a dreamer, with his family. Then his parents were murdered—though time had passed between their deaths that had been _happy_ —and Gansey had died; Blue had almost lost her eye, Adam lost control of both of his, and Noah left them all for good. So much horror had passed in those few days, but they somehow came out alright.

Years had passed, and things had gotten even better. Ronan had Adam and Opal, the cows and the crops and the house; he had his friends every few weekends, his brothers every Sunday. He missed what he’d lost with every beat of his heart, but he had made more happy memories than sad. They didn’t cancel out the tragedy, but they made it easier to bear.

Ronan's phone chimed with the tone of a new text.

**message from “bro” at 6:21pm**

> **_we’ll be there in 5 minutes, fucker._ **

Ronan chuckled at the phone. There was a time when Blue would have texted Adam instead of him—due to, of course, his penchant to ignore any and all attempts to contact him—but Ronan liked to think he’d matured. He was a father after all; he had to be a model citizen to set the best example for his child, no matter if she was completely human or not.

Said child came cantering into the room, Andromeda’s stars stuck in her tight grip.

“What are you doing, shithead?” he asked, catching her around the waist as she tried to run past him. Her outraged squawk of _Kerah!_ soon turned into giggles as he tickled her. He hoisted her onto his shoulders, holding tight to her hooves as they laughed together.

“Are they almost here? I’m hungry,” Opal asked, patting Ronan on his head. He swiped at her for that and she shrieked with renewed amusement. He flipped her over his head and set her down on the ground in front of them

“What do you care—you eat anything; the table, the napkins, the _silverware_.”

Opal pouted, crossing her arms. “That was _one_ time. You both promised not to mention it.”

“Nope, little fucker. Adam promised that. I never said—”

“ _ADAM?_ ”

Ronan broke off at the sound of Gansey's voice. That wasn’t just it; he had _screamed_ Adam's name. This was the man who had punched his kidnapper in the face (breaking his thumb in the process, but that wasn’t the point), died twice and returned, and put up with Ronan's drinking and drag-racing for years without raising his voice more than three times. He once told Ronan he didn’t yell because he was saving it for the day it would count; it seemed that day had come.

Ronan was out the door in a minute, not even shoving his feet into shoes before sprinting towards the Camaro across the damp grass and burning pavement. Gansey was swaying on his feet, a hand clasped over his mouth. Henry’s own hands were braced against the car, fingers curled in tight. Blue was closest, her expression horrified as she turned away from them to look at Ronan.

He’d forgotten how strong she’d gotten—all her years of hiking and trekking around the world, training how to fight because she hadn't been gifted with genetic gold at birth. She reached him before he would have reached her, and she wrapped herself tight around him, digging her heels into the ground to hold him back.

“ _Blue_ —what are you—what _happened_?” Ronan demanded, struggling against her.

He could feel her shaking her head against his chest. “Ronan, you can’t do anything. Don’t—” she choked out.

Ronan wrestled himself out of her grip, not letting her finish even as she screamed after him. What could have happened that was so bad; so horrible that he wasn’t supposed to see?

Ronan felt as though he were wading through water, like the current was pushing against him and his limbs were heavy with exhaustion. It was just a memory. There was the BMW, nestled in the garage. There was the bloody tire iron, resting in a pile of gray matter next to his father's body. His father was dead.

Ronan shook his head. The present hurt more, somehow. It wasn’t his father in the driveway, brains splattered against the concrete and the tires of the BMW, his blood pooled beneath his ruined face.

It was Adam.

Ronan didn’t remember moving to Adam’s side, but the next thing he knew, he was kneeling on the ground with hovering hands above him. Adam lay on his side, eyes unseeing as they gazed into the headlights of the Pig. The strong bones of his skull had been ripped apart, its contents spilling past the jagged edges to pool beside him. Ronan’s hands felt too indelicate as he fumbled for Adam, hands pressed against still-warm cheeks, pressed against unbeating pulses.

“Adam?” Ronan whispered, pressing harder into the skin he knew so well, as though Adam would wake up and look up at him with that easy smile and tell Ronan he was being a drama queen. But Ronan knew this injury; even if Adam’s skull had been intact, a tire iron against it would cause unrectifiable damage. Ronan had been laughing with Opal, playing as though this were just another day while Adam was—while he was—

_Dying._

Adam was dead.

“A- _Adam_ ,” Ronan choked out again, feeling his heart shatter in his chest as he carefully pulled Adam’s body into his lap. He could feel the splinters of bone against his arm, the blood seeping into his pants, but he only held Adam tighter as the sobs racked through him. Distantly, he realized a litany of Adam’s name was falling out of his mouth, but even that couldn’t bring him back. Love couldn’t save him; if that couldn’t, what could?

A slam brought his head up, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Adam’s. He heard Blue’s angry voice, but the words didn’t make sense. Gansey replied shakily and Henry’s voice joined the mix. Adam’s did not, and Ronan rocked their bodies back and forth.

“—it worked before—”

“—can’t get his hopes up—”

“What if it doesn’t—”

“—got to _fucking try_ —”

Ronan felt them settle beside him—Gansey’s shoulder an inch from his own, Blue at his other side, Henry beside her at Adam’s feet.

There was a heavy silence, broken only by their sobs and the sound of Adam’s wedding band scraping against the concrete with every lurch. Even that was coated with blood, running down from his broken nails where he’d tried to crawl away.

Blue took a deep breath. “Cabeswater. How much of it is left?”

“Didn’t it sacrifice itself to save me?” Gansey asked, hands clenching into fists on his thighs; he didn’t believe himself worth the sacrifice.

Ronan opened his mouth but his words wouldn’t come out. He cleared his throat, and spoke slowly; it felt as though each word struck straight through his chest. “T-The physical aspect, y- _yes_. H-He’d said it still called to him sometimes. I can still dream.”

“Would Cabeswater save him?” Blue asked bluntly. Ronan finally looked away, his fingers shaking against Adam as though it would prove he was still there. She looked tired and old beyond her years, her scar standing out more than usual as she looked into his eyes—into his soul. She cradled Opal the way he held Adam, and she shifted to let her rest her head against Ronan’s shoulder. She was shaking as well, huge eyes loosing fat tears down her cheeks; even if she hadn’t loved Adam, she was part of Ronan and every piece of him was devoted to the man in his arms.

Ronan shook his head. “I-I _don’t know_. I thought we were fucking _done_ with this mess.” He pressed one of his hands against his eyes, pushing hard until it hurt. He was sure he had smeared something onto his face but Blue held his gaze still. “G-Gansey, could you try? The way we did with the animals—”

Gansey wrapped his arms around Ronan, holding him tight. “Of _course_ , Ronan.” They all pressed close to each other and to Adam, to touch some part of him, even Henry with his hands around Adam’s ankles. Ronan could practically feel Blue concentrating beside him; she was an amplifier, after all.

“Save him,” Gansey said. They all held their breath. Gansey grabbed for Adam’s hand, clutching it to his chest as he repeated himself. “ _Save him._ ”

Nothing changed. There wasn’t even a gust of wind to show they had been heard, to show that it wasn’t all for naught. Adam was still dead, and they were all broken.

Ronan took deep, shuddering breaths, tracing patterns on Adam’s face. He felt Blue’s hand against his bare wrist, where his leather bands used to rest. She pressed down against his veins until he looked at her; he could see their agony in her eyes, the way she could see it in his.

“Try it,” she breathed, grasping one of Adam’s hands and one of Ronan’s. “Cabeswater loves you. _Try it_.”

Cabeswater had saved Gansey when they were in high school because it was already dying; it was foolish to think it would do the same as it grew stronger again. He didn’t want it to die for Adam, the way it had for Gansey; Adam was its magician, still its eyes and hands all these years later, always fighting against the restrictions he had placed on its control to keep the past from repeating itself. It wouldn’t work.

But Ronan was the greywaren. Cabeswater had given him unthinkable power, same as his father, and he’d learned how to use it. He wasn’t only a dreamer in sleep, but in life as well. Cabeswater loved him, and he loved Adam.

Ronan lowered his lips to Adam’s forehead, brushing fingers against his cool cheek. “ _Please_ ,” he said. “Please—Cabeswater. Save him.”

Adam Parrish was stubborn. He wouldn’t let anyone do anything for him that he could do for himself. As Ronan held him and their friends held the two of them, he closed his eyes. This was the boy who hadn’t accepted a home with Gansey, who had barely accepted a beat-up car from Helen, who had fought with Ronan for years over the rent he’d paid in their senior year of high school. Ronan’s lips wobbled into the smallest of smiles.

Ronan was the son of a dreamer and a dream. Both were long dead, but he still remembered the fairy tales they used to read him late at night. There was one with true love’s kiss. Maybe it was worth a shot.

“Come back,” Ronan said, brushing his lips against Adam’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [read on tumblr](http://lady-gryffindor.tumblr.com/post/146040850558/weve-got-to-break-this-cycle)


	3. Mother

Cabeswater had died, in a sense, almost a decade ago; it had sacrificed itself for Gansey, for the simple reason that he was integral to its survival. Cabeswater did not exist without Ronan, and Ronan did not exist without Gansey. Ronan’s magnificent creation—his channeling of the ancient magic into a tangible forest—had been tainted, poisoned by the demon and was already dying.

It’s sacrifice allowed for new life, for the chance that it would one day return—in a millennia, in an _age_ , with a new dreamer who dreamed new dreams (who would hopefully be more like Ronan than the others had been). Some part of Cabeswater remained in the grove of Ronan’s dreams, fading into hazy shadow at the edges of his vision; some part remained in Adam’s magic, admiring his attempts to revive it. The trees had lost their souls for salvation, but everything is reborn someday.

Why Ronan? Why was he allowed this reminder of what he had done for love—love of a brother and a friend, love of memories and of dreams—and for fear and knowledge of what loss could bring? Gansey had died for him, and so part of Ronan had died for Gansey in turn. Part of Ronan was already dead anyway, a beautiful part that had taught him to swim and kissed his knees when he fell and scared away the dark left by his father’s long absences with candlelit stories.

Aurora had lived in Cabeswater—as much as someone neither alive nor dead can _live_ —and became a part of it as all its inhabitants had. She was not the trees that Blue traced her lineage to, not the abandoned Mitsubishi missing keys and maker. She was not hands nor eyes of the magic itself, not born of the ley line her son and his friends had chased for so long.

She slumbered for the ten odd years that her son learned how to live with her loss, but she remembered his pain. She was dead—as much as someone neither alive nor dead can _die_ —when Ronan and Adam found her body, mutilated and bloody and far too much like her husband’s had once been, but her sentience had struggled when she heard his agony shake the ancient forest.

Ronan had lost so much, though he gained love that sometimes made him forget for a moment that he was an orphan with too much resting on his tired shoulders. His father had been a wicked dreamer, and his mother a perfect dream. Both were long dead, but Adam was broken in his arms, a fragment of his life still holding on—as much as something that is practically dead can do anything—as though Adam knew he was a necessity to Ronan’s survival.

Ronan’s agony was stronger even than it had been when Niall had died, when Aurora had ceased to be. It shook the _world_. Aurora was his mother, but she knew this was not a bloody knee to patch up, nor tears to wipe away. She knew this was not a monster to chase away in the night, nor the demon that had killed her that Ronan had almost died because of too.

This was Ronan’s soul wrenched from his body, held in a place between life and death. Aurora had ceased to be once Niall died, for she was made by him. Ronan was made for Adam, and even he could not survive this death.

Aurora woke up, deep in the grove of Ronan’s memory, of his dreams. Her hair was matted with decade-old blood, her nails broken and her body mangled, but she dragged herself onward. Gansey had been searching for a lost king who would change his world, but did not recognize that the woman who had bore the Greywaren was a queen.

“ _Help him_ ,” she demanded, exerting more force than she ever had in life—as much as someone neither dead nor alive can live.

“ _We are not able_ ,” the trees replied, words more of wind between their leaves than wrought from lungs and mouths.

“ _I was not making a request._ ”

The trees were silent, realizing as Gansey had not that a queen lay among them. Her eyes were cloudy after years of disuse, but she looked through their exteriors to hold the souls within with her stare. She had been beautiful once, but she had always been much more than that, something slumbering beneath her somber superficiality.

“ _He is not yet gone,_ ” she said, feeling at once herself and Ronan, still shaking as he clutched Adam’s body, breaking her heart as each sob wracked his body. Adam’s soul still held its grip, as it could not stand being ripped away. She reached through her mind, through Ronan’s to Adam’s, and clutched his hands in her own, relegating her remaining strength to him. “ _Help him._ ”

“ _His fate is decided._ ”

“ _We are beyond fate now. It does not exist here._ ”

Adam’s hands were cooling against her own, and she felt his fear. She heard his last thoughts, his impossible wish for Ronan’s happiness. It was him she addressed, pressing her forehead to his.

“ _You are his happiness.You are all that he is._ ”

Aurora gazed up at the trees again. Her words, her might, had moved them too. She felt their hands on her shoulders, their strength flooding her empty veins and reaching for Adam too.

“ _You tried to save him from perishing at my death.You can save him now.”_

The magic of Cabeswater had sacrificed so much for Gansey, who was truly gone, who believed his death an inescapable necessity. He had not attempted to remain once he had died, not realized that a sacrifice would be made for him. Adam’s soul remembered Gansey’s death, how they begged for his life back. Aurora felt more hands, more magic, come to their aid. Adam’s friends—his _family_ now—with their love and pain and fear and agony even louder than death.

Aurora chased away death’s darkness, it’s grip on his soul. She pushed him a little, pushing his soul back into his body. Aurora knew she could not repair any lasting trauma, but the trees put him back together—putting him back inside himself too. Aurora kissed Adam’s forehead, wiping away his tears and as much of his pain as she could muster.

“ _This is what a mother is supposed to be_ ,” Adam whispered.

* * *

Adam was aware of pain receding from his body, but he could not place why it had been there to begin with. His head was pounding, and he heard the metallic scratch of his wedding ring on the wet pavement beneath him before he felt it; Ronan would roll his eyes at the new marks on the ring, but he would surely repair them if Adam wished. Adam felt as though he were missing something important. What day was it? Why was everything so wet?

He was in Ronan’s arms. He could hear sobs—that was what was moving him rather than his own volition. There were hands bracketing the rest of his body, gripping him so hard he might have bruises in the morning.

What had happened that morning?

Adam remembered Blue and Gansey and Henry were supposed to come over, that Ronan had reminded him of this as soon as they woke. They hadn’t gotten out of bed right away until Opal threw Orion’s left foot directly at Ronan’s eye, and he had to get out of bed to chase her down. Adam had sat up, resting on his arms as he heard the sounds of them sprinting and yelling throughout the house. This was happiness.

Adam managed to open his eyes slightly. He had a strange, sideways view right at the bottom of Ronan’s BMW. It really did need an oil change; Adam would have to take it in tomorrow. He looked around as far as his half-open eyes would allow. The wetness covering the ground wasn’t rain, but _blood_. Who was hurt? Who was bleeding this mu—

It was Adam.

It all came back to him in a rush. The man with the tire iron, mirroring Mr. Grey so many years before. Laumonier. The blows against his head, that made him wince just to remember. There was something beyond that, beyond his brutal death.

He had _died_.

How was he not dead now? He remembered trying to stay, remembered his grip starting to fail and then strengthening as though more hands were joining his. He remembered light against his eyes, love so strong it was too painful to stay away. He remembered a mother’s kiss against his forehead, a mother’s belief in him—something he found hard to understand, though he was sure it had happened.

He fought through his lasting haze of confusion, and opened his eyes fully. They were partially obscured with blood still, and his mouth felt as though it were filled with sand. Was he even breathing? He was definitely dehydrated—that much he knew.

Adam tried to say Ronan’s name, but no sound managed to make it past his lips. Adam tried again.

“R-Ron-nan,” he choked out.

Ronan’s hands were on his face instantly, rubbing against his cheeks and over his brow and his lips and everywhere that he could reach. He maneuvered Adam so that he could see him, and Adam saw that the majority of the sobbing had been Ronan’s. He still wept now, though out of joy at the impossibility of Adam breathing again. Ronan’s hands shakily traveled to the back of Adam’s head, looking for the gaping wound and finding none.

“ _Adam_ ,” Ronan said, heart in his throat. “ _Oh, Adam._ ”

Adam willed his arms to move, and wrapped them around Ronan’s neck, pulling him close until there was barely space to breathe between them. They were both shaking now, Ronan’s stuttering hands tracing every inch of Adam. Adam hated himself for what his death had put Ronan through.

“Do-don’t you d- _dare_ ,” Ronan ordered, as though he could read Adam’s mind, which wouldn’t even be a shock at this point in the day.

Adam was aware that his friends were also there, but his heart ached too much for what he’d almost lost—what he and Ronan had almost lost. Their souls were inseparable, and even the weak remainder of Cabeswater could see that.

Ronan pulled away an inch, just to look into Adam’s eyes. His gaze was reverent—more so than usual—and it was as though he never wanted to miss another second of seeing Adam alive. He pressed a kiss to Adam’s forehead, murmuring again and again there between the press of his lips.

“ _You came back_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [read on tumblr](http://lady-gryffindor.tumblr.com/post/161706524233/weve-got-to-break-this-cycle)
> 
>  
> 
> There will be another chapter, but it will just be a short epilogue! I am so sorry that I stopped writing all together and left you all without resolution! I hope you enjoy.


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